The Andersen Project, The Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band

ROBERT LEPAGE’s wondrous The Seven Streams of the River Ota was a transformative experience. The Andersen Project (Aotea Centre, March 19-22) demanded I got on a plane to the Auckland Festival and I highly doubt I will see better theatre this year.

Lepage’s imaginatively staged play hooks you in with KDD’s sweltering rap ‘Qui Tu Es?’ (Who Are You?), which hits you like a shot of adrenaline to the heart. Honing in on the crucial theme of identity, it’s complemented by a Morrocan graffiti artist drawing an image of Hans Christian Andersen.

The young immigrant cleans a peep show below a Parisian apartment. Upstairs Frederic Lapointe, an Albino Canadian librettist, is working on The Andersen Project, inspired by the Dane’s life and work. Yves Jacques memorably portrays both men, Andersen and Frederic’s Paris Opera producer.

The porn-addicted Parisian, and Frederic’s visit to a psychologist, occasions much comedy. Razor-sharp one-liners and sustained, thoughtful riffs edgily explore insularity, awakening, sex, man’s search for meaning and French bigotry.

Afterwards, The Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band provided a reasonably fun, Eastern European nightcap at the atmospheric Spiegeltent. With echoes of The Darkness, Borat and Tom Waits, the five-piece jaunted through aptly titled songs, ‘Dark Eyes’, ‘Nabakov’s Wandering Eye’ and ‘Dance of Death’.